Christmas Stocking Quotes

for a Christmas present. They read it just after they had hung up their stockings before one of the big fireplaces in their house. Afterward, they learned it,

I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!

Grownups are the ones who puzzle me at Christmastime...Who, but a grownup, would ruin a beautiful holiday season for himself by suddenly attempting to correspond with four hundred people he doesn't see all year?

The story is told that when Joe was a child his cousins emptied his Christmas stocking and replaced the gifts with horse manure. Joe took one look and bolted for the door, eyes glittering with excitement. 'Wait, Joe, where are you going? What did ol' Santa bring you?' According to the story Joe paused at the door for a piece of rope. 'Brought me a bran'-new pony but he got away. I'll catch 'em if I hurry.' And ever since then it seemed that Joe had been accepting more than his share of hardship as good fortune, and more than his share of shit as a sign of Shetland ponies just around the corner, Thoroughbred stallions just up the road.

If I hired one of the stock boys to chase me around the store with a licorice whip, I'd be thin by Christmas.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds; While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave a lustre of midday to objects below, When what to my wondering eyes did appear, But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer, With a little old driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blixen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!" As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky; So up to the housetop the coursers they flew With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too— And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack. His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face and a little round belly That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose; He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight— “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

The warm night claimed her. In a moment it was part of her. She walked on the grass, and her shoes were instantly soaked. She flung up her arms to the sky. Power ran to her fingertips. Excitement was communicated from the waiting trees, and the orchard, and the paddock; the intensity of their secret life caught at her and made her run. It was nothing like the excitement of ordinary looking forward, of birthday presents, of Christmas stockings, but the pull of a magnet - her grandfather had shown her once how it worked, little needles springing to the jaws - and now night and the sky above were a vast magnet, and the things that waited below were needles, caught up in the great demand. ("The Pool")

. . . she jumped to her feet and hurried off, returning only seconds later with a dark brown bottle and a coffee mug that said And then Buffy staked Edward. The End.

You remember that Christmas when they got ill?" Mum says presently. "The year they were about two and three? Remember? And got poo all over their Christmas stockings, and it was everywhere, and we said, "It has to get easier than this"?" "I remember." "We were cleaning it all up and we kept saying to each other, "When they get older, it'll get easier." Remember?" "I do." Dad looks fondly at her. " Well bring back the poo." Mum begins to laugh, a bit hysterically. "I would do anything for a bit of poo right now." "I dream of poo," says Dad firmly, and Mum laughs even more, till she's wiping tears from her eyes.

From the baking aisle to the post office line to the wrapping paper bin in the attic, women populate every dark corner of Christmas. Who got up at 4 a.m. to put the ham in the oven? A woman. . . . Who sent the Christmas card describing her eighteen-year-old son's incarceration as 'a short break before college?' A woman. Who remembered to include batteries at the bottom of each stocking? A woman. And who gets credit for pulling it all off? Santa. That's right. A man.

There was something about Christmas Eve, they both felt, that demanded company; one needed somebody to whisper to, during the warm beautiful dream-taut moments between hanging the empty stocking at the end of the bed, and dropping into the cosy oblivion that would flower into the marvel of Christmas morning.

It’d be fun, you know. Just once. To wake up Christmas morning with snow on the ground and stockings full of presents that no one had to steal and a house that’s really home.” She reclaimed the teapot and slowly slipped back into the con. “That would be nice. Maybe, someday, we’ll steal that.” On

I’ve always told you that home is wherever you hang your Christmas stocking, You’ll know in your heart when you’ve found the right place, or the right person.

Twas the night before Christmas, the office was closed, The transom was shut, the staff home in repose; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, But St. Nicholas won’t be coming because this is a Designated National Security Site within the meaning of Para 4.12 of Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act (Amended) and unauthorised intrusion on such a site is an arrestable offense ...

People open shops in order to sell things, they hope to become busy so that they will have to enlarge the shop, then to sell more things, and grow rich, and eventually not have to come into the shop at all. Isn't that true? But are there other people who open a shop with the hope of being sheltered there, among such things as they most value - the yarn or the teacups or the books - and with the idea only of making a comfortable assertion? They will become a part of the block, a part of the street, part of everybody's map of the town, and eventually of everybody's memories. They will sit and drink coffee in the middle of the morning, they will get out the familiar bits of tinsel at Christmas, they will wash the windows in spring before spreading out the new stock. Shops, to these people, are what a cabin in the woods might be to somebody else - a refuge and a justification.

We try a new drug, a new combination of drugs, and suddenly I fall into my life again   like a vole picked up by a storm then dropped three valleys and two mountains away from home.   I can find my way back. I know I will recognize the store where I used to buy milk and gas.   I remember the house and barn, the rake, the blue cups and plates, the Russian novels I loved so much,   and the black silk nightgown that he once thrust into the toe of my Christmas stocking.

We are entrusted, you must know, with the revision of the English Dictionary. On the evidence of the Liverpool find of Christmas cards, in which occurred such couplets as: Just to hope the day keeps fine For you and your this Christmas time, and: I hope this stocking's in your line When stars shine bright at Christmas-time I hold that "Christmas-time" was often pronounced "Christmas-tine", and that this is a dialect variant of the older "Christmas-tide". Quant denies this, with a warmth that is unusual in him.' 'Quant is right.

Me: Did you get your tree yet? Ken: I'm a Jew, I don't decorate Christmas trees. Me: So you're going to go with a wreath instead? Ken: I just told you, I'm a Jew. Me: Oh, I get it. You're looking for a cheap wreath. Ken: I'm not looking for a wreath at all. Leave me alone, will you. Me: You're probably just tense because you haven't finished your Christmas shopping. Ken: I don't Christmas shop. Me: What are you telling me? That you make all of your presents. Ken: I don't give Christmas presents period. Goddamit, I told you, I'm a Jew. Me: Well, don't you at least need to buy something for your parents? Ken: They're Jews, too, idiot. That's what makes me one. It's hereditary. Do you understand? Me: Sure. Ken: Say the words "I understand." Me: I understand. So where are you going to hang your stocking?

There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before. Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York--every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler's thumb. At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby's enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-d'oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another. By seven o'clock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece affair, but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos, and low and high drums. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing up-stairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors, and hair shorn in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing, and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside, until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names. The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. Suddenly one of the gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray's understudy from the FOLLIES. The party has begun.

Santa Claus, Snowflakes, and Stocking Stuffers Christmas is definitely here

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs? —Gilbert K. Chesterton

I suppose you will be hanging up your stocking just once more: I hope so for I have still a few little things for you. After this I shall have to say “goodbye”, more or less: I mean, I shall not forget you. We always keep the old numbers of our old friends, and their letters; and later on we hope to come back when they are grown up and have houses of their own and children.

The next morning re-supply choppers brought mail, supplies, and Christmas stockings that had been packed by young school kids. Each stocking contained lots of candy and a letter. We took turns passing the letters around. Tex’s parents had sent him a small, artificial Christmas tree. We set it up on the top of our foxhole and decorated it with white shaving cream from our sundry supplies. The shaving cream looked like snow.

Two days after being sexually assaulted, Trixie felt her life crack, unequally, along the fault line of the rape. The old Trixie Stone used to be a person who dreamed of flying and wanted, when she got old enough, to jump out of a plane and try it. The new Trixie couldn't even sleep with the light off. The old Trixie liked wearing T-shirts that hugged her tight; the new Trixie went to her father's dresser for a sweatshirt that she could hide beneath. The old Trixie sometimes showered twice a day, so that she could smell like the pear soap that her mother always put in her Christmas stocking. The new Trixie felt dirty, no matter how many times she scrubbed herself. The old Trixie felt like part of a group. The new Trixie felt alone, even when she was surrounded by people. The old Trixie would have taken one look at the new Trixie and dismissed her as a total loser.

…old houses move in their sleep like the dreaming, remembering limbs of very old people. Boards whisper, steps cry out softly to the whispering remembrance of footfalls long gone to earth. Mantelpieces strain gently in the darkness beneath the ghosts of old Christmas stockings. Joists and beams and rafters hunch lightly like the brittle ribs of old women in their sleep: the heart recalling, the worn carpet slippers whispering down the halls again.

Back in Brooklyn, the wind was sharp and the streets were slick and Kat just really wished her Uncle Eddie believed in leaving a key under the mat instead of maintaining his strict stance that anyone who could not break into his Brooklyn brownstone had absolutely no business staying there without him. “Is there a problem, Kitty Kat?” a voice said from over Kat’s shoulder. Kat’s fingers were frozen and her breath fogged, and she’d had a far too upbeat rendition of “White Christmas” stuck in her head on a perpetual loop for the past eight hours. So, yes, there was a problem. But Kat would never, ever admit it. “I’m fine, Gabrielle,” she told her cousin. “Really?” Gab asked. “Because if you can’t handle Uncle Eddie’s lock then someone is going to get a lump of coal in her stocking again this Christmas.” “It wasn’t coal,” Kat shot back. “It was a very rare mineral from a condemned mine in South Africa, and it was a very thoughtful gift.

I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath, and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a

Think of the Christmas present of gashes you opened when, in an attempt to be Superman, you slid in stocking feet on a slippery wood floor and crashed half way through a window. Hopes of heroism dashed on the heels of no clear sighting of Santa.

I’d read enough and seen enough to know that kids could grow up in the worst hell and become valedictorians and doctors. Or they could be raised in privilege with two parents and Christmas trees stocked with gifts and still die of overdoses or by suicide.

The office is painted with green and red stripes. It’s not painted that way so my mom can experience Christmas 364 more days a year. It represents the stock market, with green symbolizing greed, and red representing fear. Buy when the masses are fearful, and sell when the population is greedy.

Anyway, thanks to Bob, that Christmas, my mother bought my grandmother and myself both vibrators. Now, as unusual as a gift like this sounds, you have to admit that they are the ideal stocking stuffers. I mean, you can fit the vibrator into the long top part of the stocking and still be able to get another cute little gift in the toe. Well, I have to admit, I enjoyed mine but my grandmother refused to use hers. She was concerned that it would short-circuit her pacemaker. She said she'd gone this long without an orgasm, she might as well go the whole way. And that pacemaker, by the way, was later recalled.

Dear Bill, I came to this black wall again, to see and touch your name. William R. Stocks. And as I do, I wonder if anyone ever stops to realize that next to your name, on this black wall, is your mother's heart. A heart broken fifteen years ago today, when you lost your life in Vietnam. And as I look at your name, I think of how many, many times I used to wonder how scared and homesick you must have been, in that strange country called Vietnam. And if and how it might have changed you, for you were the most happy-go-lucky kid in the world, hardly ever sad or unhappy. And until the day I die, I will see you as you laughed at me, even when I was very mad at you. And the next thing I knew, we were laughing together. But on this past New Year's Day, I talked by phone to a friend of yours from Michigan, who spent your last Christmas and the last four months of your life with you. Jim told me how you died, for he was there and saw the helicopter crash. He told me how your jobs were like sitting ducks; they would send you men out to draw the enemy into the open, and then, they would send in the big guns and planes to take over. He told me how after a while over there, instead of a yellow streak, the men got a mean streak down their backs. Each day the streak got bigger, and the men became meaner. Everyone but you, Bill. He said how you stayed the same happy-go-lucky guy that you were when you arrived in Vietnam. And he said how you, of all people, should never have been the one to die. How lucky you were to have him for a friend. And how lucky he was to have had you. They tell me the letters I write to you and leave here at this memorial are waking others up to the fact that there is still much pain left from the Vietnam War. But this I know; I would rather to have had you for twenty-one years and all the pain that goes with losing you, than never to have had you at all. -Mom

For what, in actual practice, should the critical, mature modernist Christian do when, for instance, he gathers his children around him to celebrate Christmas? Should he read Luke's Christmas Gospel and sing the Christmas carols as if they were true, even though he believes them to be crude and primitive theology? After all, the rest of his society has no scruples about doing this, the pagans and the department stores. Or if this seems too cynical, too dishonest, ought he rather, in the manner of early socialist Sunday schools, to devise a passionately rationalist catechesis, swap German for German, chant a passage from Bultmann instead of 'Joy to the World!'; ought he rather to gather his little ones about the Crib, light the candles, and read Raymond Brown instead of St. Luke on the virginal conception of Jesus: 'My judgment in conclusion is that the totality of the scientifically controllable evidence leaves an unresolved problem.' How their eyes will shine, how their little hearts will burn within them as they hear these holy words! How touched they will all be as the littlest child reverently places a shining question mark in the empty manger. And how they will rejoice when they find their stockings, which they have hung up to a Protestant parody of a Catholic bishop, stuffed with subscriptions to 'Concilium,' 'Catholic Update,' 'National Catholic Reporter,' and 'The Tablet.

I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!

The next day—Christmas Eve—Musk called in reinforcements. Ross Nordeen drove from San Francisco. He stopped at the Apple Store in Union Square and spent $2,000 to buy out the entire stock of AirTags so the servers could be tracked on their journey, and then stopped at Home Depot, where he spent $2,500 on wrenches, bolt-cutters, headlamps, and the tools needed to unscrew the seismic bolts. Steve Davis got someone from The Boring Company to procure a semi truck and line up moving vans. Other enlistees arrived from SpaceX.

The Christmas I was sixteen, my ma and I were poorer than church mice. My pa died when I was two, taking her heart with him." A smile curved his lips. "She could have remarried for a more comfortable life. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. We were happy, though, her and I. Just when I was getting old enough to do odd jobs, bring in some money to make her life easier, she got sick. I stayed home to nurse her. She had no strength left. But somehow she'd scraped together the last of her red yarn and made me a pair of stockings. My Christmas gift that year." Sensing his thoughts lingered in the past, Louisa brushed a finger over the scrap in her palm. "She died several weeks later." Louise caught her breath, aching for the pain of that young man. "I took a lot of ribbing for wearing red stockings. But I didn't give them up, even when I could afford to. I felt like they kept my ma close. Like she was with me." Tears welled up in Louisa's eyes. One dripped over. He caught the drop on the tip of his finger. "They brought me luck." "That's why you're called Red. I wondered.

At Christmas the only sign of the season at Levy's Lodge, the only barometer of Yuletide spirit was the appearance of his daughters, who descended upon him from college with demands for additional money coupled with threats to disavow his paternity forever if he continued to mistreat their mother. For Christmas, Mrs. Levy always compiled not a gift list but rather a list of the injustices and brutalities she had suffered since August. The girls got this list in their stockings. The only gift Mrs. Levy asked of the girls was that they attack their father. Mrs. Levy loved Christmas.

THE HOUSE SEEMED UTTERLY deserted. Compared to the Christmases of his childhood there was something unforgiving about Leyville now. Montignac’s aunt, Ann, had always made the house seem incredibly festive, with an enormous Christmas tree in the downstairs hallway that stretched halfway up the house, past the staircase, in the direction of the first-floor bedrooms. The mantelpieces were always covered with holly and cards; stockings were pinned by the fireplace. Wrapping paper and presents were to be found in every nook and cranny. There was nothing like that now, just the stark emptiness of the rest of the year and the echoing silence of generations that had passed through the house and died.

The kingdom is finally to be identified as the Lord Jesus himself. When we say “Come, Lord Jesus” on this Christmas Day, we are preferring his Lordship to any other loyalty system or any other final frame of reference. If Jesus is Lord, than Caesar is not! If Jesus is Lord, then the economy and stock market are not! If Jesus is Lord, then my house and possessions, family and job are not! If Jesus is Lord, than I am not! That multileveled implication was obvious to first-century members of the Roman Empire because the phrase “Caesar is Lord” was the empire’s loyalty test and political bumper sticker. They, and others, knew they had changed “parties” when they welcomed Jesus as Lord instead of the Roman emperor as their savior.

I’d have Lee too, and Jackson and Albert Sidney Johnston, walking around the midway. Hire some people with beards, you know, to do that. I wouldn’t have Braxton Bragg or Joseph E. Johnston. Every afternoon at three Lee would take off his gray coat and wrestle an alligator in a mud hole. Prize drawings. A lot of T-shirts and maybe a few black-and-white portables. If you don’t like that, how about a stock-car track? Year-round racing with hardly any rules. Deadly curves right on the water. The Symes 500 on Christmas day. Get a promotional tie-in with the Sugar Bowl. How about an industrial park? How about a high-rise condominium with a roof garden? How about a baseball clinic? How about a monkey island? I don’t say it would be cheap. Nobody’s going to pay to see one or two monkeys these days. People want to see a lot of monkeys. I’ve got plenty of ideas but first I have to get my hands on the island.

[...]a man and a boy, side by side on a yellow Swedish sofa from the 1950s that the man had bought because it somehow reminded him of a zoot suit, watching the A’s play Baltimore, Rich Harden on the mound working that devious ghost pitch, two pairs of stocking feet, size 11 and size 15, rising from the deck of the coffee table at either end like towers of the Bay Bridge, between the feet the remains in an open pizza box of a bad, cheap, and formerly enormous XL meat lover’s special, sausage, pepperoni, bacon, ground beef, and ham, all of it gone but crumbs and parentheses of crusts left by the boy, brackets for the blankness of his conversation and, for all the man knew, of his thoughts, Titus having said nothing to Archy since Gwen’s departure apart from monosyllables doled out in response to direct yes-or-nos, Do you like baseball? you like pizza? eat meat? pork?, the boy limiting himself whenever possible to a tight little nod, guarding himself at his end of the sofa as if riding on a crowded train with something breakable on his lap, nobody saying anything in the room, the city, or the world except Bill King and Ken Korach calling the plays, the game eventless and yet blessedly slow, player substitutions and deep pitch counts eating up swaths of time during which no one was required to say or to decide anything, to feel what might conceivably be felt, to dread what might be dreaded, the game standing tied at 1 and in theory capable of going on that way forever, or at least until there was not a live arm left in the bullpen, the third-string catcher sent in to pitch the thirty-second inning, batters catnapping slumped against one another on the bench, dead on their feet in the on-deck circle, the stands emptied and echoing, hot dog wrappers rolling like tumbleweeds past the diehards asleep in their seats, inning giving way to inning as the dawn sky glowed blue as the burner on a stove, and busloads of farmhands were brought in under emergency rules to fill out the weary roster, from Sacramento and Stockton and Norfolk, Virginia, entire villages in the Dominican ransacked for the flower of their youth who were loaded into the bellies of C-130s and flown to Oakland to feed the unassuageable appetite of this one game for batsmen and fielders and set-up men, threat after threat giving way to the third out, weak pop flies, called third strikes, inning after inning, week after week, beards growing long, Christmas coming, summer looping back around on itself, wars ending, babies graduating from college, and there’s ball four to load the bases for the 3,211th time, followed by a routine can of corn to left, the commissioner calling in varsity teams and the stars of girls’ softball squads and Little Leaguers, Archy and Titus sustained all that time in their equally infinite silence, nothing between them at all but three feet of sofa;

We begin with an onion soup as smoky and fragrant as autumn leaves, with croutons and grated Gruyère and a sprinkle of paprika over the top. She serves and watches me throughout, waiting, perhaps, for me to produce from thin air an even more perfect confection that will cast her effort into the shade. Instead I eat, and talk, and smile, and compliment the chef, and the chink of crockery goes through her head, and she feels slightly dazed, not quite herself. Well, pulque is a mysterious brew, and the punch is liberally spiked with it, courtesy of Yours Truly, of course, in honor of the joyful occasion. As comfort, perhaps, she serves more punch, and the scent of the cloves is like being buried alive, and the taste is like chilies spiced with fire, and she wonders, Will it ever end? The second course is sweet foie gras, sliced on thin toast with quinces and figs. It's the snap that gives this dish its charm, like the snap of correctly tempered chocolate, and the foie gras melts so lingeringly in the mouth, as soft as praline truffle, and it is served with a glass of ice-cold Sauternes that Anouk disdains, but which Rosette sips in a tiny glass no larger than a thimble, and she gives her rare and sunny smile, and signs impatiently for more. The third course is a salmon baked en papillote and served whole, with a béarnaise sauce. Alice complains she is nearly full, but Nico shares his plate with her, feeding her tidbits and laughing at her minuscule appetite. Then comes the pièce de résistance: the goose, long roasted in a hot oven so that the fat has melted from the skin, leaving it crisp and almost caramelized, and the flesh so tender it slips off the bones like a silk stocking from a lady's leg. Around it there are chestnuts and roast potatoes, all cooked and crackling in the golden fat.

A brick would make a great stocking stuffer at Christmas—especially if you chisel it out of the fireplace the stocking is hanging from. Let the homeowner know how much you care.


Twas the night before Christmas, the office was closed, The transom was shut, the staff home in repose; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, But St. Nicholas won’t be coming because this is a Designated National Security Site within the meaning of Para 4.12 of Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act (Amended) and unauthorised intrusion on such a site is an arrestable offense ...

The South West is like a Christmas stocking – all the nuts end up at the bottom.

Inside Brick Church, Peter held Patricia’s little hand while they sang hymns. He thought about the schooner so much that he barely knew what he was singing.

Why did you take it out of the window and hang up some old socks instead?” Peter asked. Uncle Jim laughed. “The stockings are for Christmas presents.” “Who’d want socks for Christmas?” Peter asked. “Not as a present! They hold presents. You know, lemon drops for your sisters…chocolates for your mother…” Jim said. Peter gave Jim a funny smile. “I don’t know if I’d want lemon drops after they’d been in one of my socks.

Marian also gave life to a fully realized Teeny, the little girl who lived across the road with her aunt. Teeny would drop in from time to time to pester Luke and ask for goods that weren’t in stock. If Teeny wanted a baseball, Luke was smack out of baseballs. By 1932 Smackout had taken on characteristics of a serial. One storyline, that summer, took up more than three months. In a 22-chapter story, culminating just before Christmas 1932, Teeny’s aunt died and Luke adopted the little girl and became her legal guardian.

I've been wondering all day what flavor lip gloss you've got on." "Dr. Pepper," I say, before my brain starts to work again. "Lip Smackers?" He laughs. "Really?" "My mom always puts a ton of them in my stocking at Christmas," I try to explain, but really, what's the point now? He already knows my taste in cosmetics hasn't changed since the seventh grade. "I like it." "You do?" "Well, let me double-check," he says, and then he licks his bottom lip before he kisses me again. I feel the tip of his tongue soft against mine, taste the sweetness of his breath as he kisses me deeper. Then he moves his lips, all warm and soft over to my ear and kisses me there until I can't speak.

Walter Bridge, husband to India and father to three, is a successful lawyer in a Kansas suburb. The daily dramas of his life only serve to illuminate his prejudice, self doubts and narrow outlook - his Christmas gifts to the family are stock certificates, which he immediately takes back to manage on their behalf - yet he is also kind and charitable, loving his wife while never able to tell her so. In Mr Bridge, Evan S. Connell gives us a moving, satirical and poetic portrayal of a man who cannot escape his limitations, and a couple growing old together but unable, ultimately, to connect.

It looks like summer with its green velvety leaves and these magnificent stacked white flowers that look like an ice-cream cone. But doesn't it smell like Christmas? Stock's scent is reminiscent of clove. It represents beauty everlasting and a joyous, happy life. It also symbolizes a lasting, loving bond.

This is the time of year when it is good to slow down, to take stock of all the ‘busyness’ of the past spring and summer and all that we have accomplished and harvested during the year. Now is the time to think about ourselves; where we have been, where we are now and where we might want to direct ourselves in the future. It is also a time to rest, to draw close to one’s family and spend some time by the fireside, if only metaphorically. Humanity can afford to enjoy some breathing space, inner nurturing and regeneration, just as the plants out in the natural world are resting and consolidating their strength for the great explosion of life and growth the following spring.

Yes.” Santa admitted. “We feed it to the world. Every piece of candy you ever got in a stocking… it came from an elf’s bum.

kiss is like Christmas Eve. Full of promise.” Their lips were almost touching, and hers tingled, as if their shadows had moved that last fraction of an inch to meet. “Once you see that stocking full of presents,” he continued softly, “it’s very difficult not to open

dementia.

I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!

Why should I even care? I just met this guy and I’m offering him a chance to have a nice Christmas instead of a boring, lonely one surrounded by Amish peeking in his windows looking for porn. I have nothing to feel guilty about, right?

Everyone who was in the Delacroix house on Christmas morning got a stocking. That was one of the rules.

Louisa watched her husband shave. He was careful, methodical, and efficient as he scraped dark whiskers from his face. He kept a mug—not a cup—of tea at his elbow throughout this masculine ritual, shaving around his mouth first so he might sip at his tea. “You missed a spot on your jaw, Husband.” Husband. Her very own husband. He turned, flecks of lather dotting his visage, and held his razor out to her. Not quite a challenge, but something more than an invitation. The moment called for a shaving sonnet. Louisa set her tea aside—tea Joseph had prepared for her—and climbed off the bed. She took the razor from him and eyed his jaw. “Were you trying to spare my sensibilities last night?” “You were indisposed.” They both fell silent while Louisa scraped the last of the whiskers from Joseph’s cheek. She appropriated the towel he’d draped over his shoulder and wiped his face clean. “I know I was indisposed, but you blew out all the candles before you undressed. I’ve seen naked men before.” She’d never slept with one wrapped around her, though. Such an arrangement was… cozy, and inclined one toward loquaciousness. “You’ve seen naked men?” There was something too casual in Joseph’s question. Louisa set the razor down and stepped back. “Growing up, there was always a brother or two to spy on, and I think they didn’t mind being spied on so very much, or they wouldn’t have been quite as loud when they went swimming. I attend every exhibition the Royal Society puts on, and the Moreland library is quite well stocked.” He kissed her, and by virtue of his mouth on hers, Louisa understood that her husband was smiling at her pronouncements. He gave her a deucedly businesslike kiss though, over in a moment. As Louisa lingered in her husband’s arms, sneaking a whiff of the lavender soap scent of his skin, she wondered if married kisses were different from the courting kind. “I have married a fearlessly naughty woman,” Joseph said, stroking a hand down her braid. “And to think I was concerned that I was imposing by asking you to share my bed last night.” “You needn’t be gallant. I talked your ears off.” And he’d listened. He hadn’t fallen asleep, hadn’t patted her arm and rolled over, hadn’t let her know in unsubtle ways that the day had been quite long enough, thank you very much.

By Lawrence Van Alstyne December 24, 1863 As tomorrow is Christmas we went out and made such purchases of good things as our purses would allow, and these we turned over to George and Henry for safe keeping and for cooking on the morrow. After that we went across the street to see what was in a tent that had lately been put up there. We found it a sort of show. There was a big snake in a showcase filled with cheap looking jewelry, each piece having a number attached to it. Also, a dice cup and dice. For $1.00 one could throw once, and any number of spots that came up would entitle the thrower to the piece of jewelry with a corresponding number on it. Just as it had all been explained to us, a greenhorn-looking chap came in and, after the thing had been explained to him, said he was always unlucky with dice, but if one of us would throw for him he would risk a dollar just to see how the game worked. Gorton is such an accommodating fellow I expected he would offer to make the throw for him, but as he said nothing, I took the cup and threw seventeen. The proprietor said it was a very lucky number, and he would give the winner $12 in cash or the fine pin that had the seventeen on it. The fellow took the cash, like a sensible man. I thought there was a chance to make my fortune and was going right in to break the bank, when Gorton, who was wiser than I, took me to one side and told me not to be a fool; that the greenhorn was one of the gang, and that the money I won for him was already his own. Others had come by this time and I soon saw he was right, and I kept out. We watched the game a while, and then went back to Camp Dudley and to bed. Christmas, and I forgot to hang up my stocking. After getting something to eat, we took stock of our eatables and of our pocket books, and found we could afford a few things we lacked. Gorton said he would invite his horse jockey friend, James Buchanan, not the ex-President, but a little bit of a man who rode the races for a living. So taking Tony with me I went up to a nearby market and bought some oysters and some steak. This with what we had on hand made us a feast such as we had often wished for in vain. Buchanan came, with his saddle in his coat pocket, for he was due at the track in the afternoon. George and Henry outdid themselves in cooking, and we certainly had a feast. There was not much style about it, but it was satisfying. We had overestimated our capacity, and had enough left for the cooks and drummer boys. Buchanan went to the races, Gorton and I went to sleep, and so passed my second Christmas in Dixie. At night the regiment came back, hungry as wolves. The officers mostly went out for a supper, but Gorton and I had little use for supper. We had just begun to feel comfortable. The regiment had no adventures and saw no enemy. They stopped at Baton Rouge and gave the 128th a surprise. Found them well and hearty, and had a real good visit. I was dreadfully sorry I had missed that treat. I would rather have missed my Christmas dinner. They report that Colonel Smith and Adjutant Wilkinson have resigned to go into the cotton and sugar speculation. The 128th is having a free and easy time, and according to what I am told, discipline is rather slack. But the stuff is in them, and if called on every man will be found ready for duty. The loose discipline comes of having nothing to do. I don’t blame them for having their fun while they can, for there is no telling when they will have the other thing. From Diary of an Enlisted Man by Lawrence Van Alstyne. New Haven, Conn., 1910.

beamed from ear to ear, a pint-size image of his dad. “And while we’re there,” Christine continued. “I’ll tell you all about our upcoming trip to Vermont.” Tyler scrunched up his face. “Vermont? What’s that?” “It’s a state, sweetheart. Just a little ways away.” He paused, considering this, then held his teddy up to his ear. “Jasper wants to know if there’ll be snow there.” “At least as much as we’ve got here.” Tyler listened to his teddy again. “Will we be there for Christmas?” “You bet!” Tyler hung his head, drawing Jasper into his chest. Christine reached out a hand and gently raised his chin. “What’s wrong, honey?” Tyler glanced at his Christmas stocking, then swallowed hard.

The day before Christmas came. Mama made her clove apple and began baking pies. Papa brought in a fresh pine tree and they decorated it with the beautiful apples. But to Katrina it just didn’t feel like Christmas. Even when she went to bed on Christmas Eve, Papa was still sawing away at the apple tree. On Christmas morning their stocking were filled with oranges, wild hickory nuts, black walnuts, and peppermint sticks. Josie gave Papa and Mama their scarves, and Katrina gave Mama the pincushion. But it still didn’t feel like Christmas to Katrina. Then Papa said, “Now my little ones, turn around and close your eyes. No peeking.” First Katrina heard Papa ask Mama to help him. Then she heard him hammering something to the beam, then he dragged something across the floor. “All right, you can look now,” said Mama. They whirled around. There, hanging from the beam, was Josie’s swing, the very same vine swing from the apple tree. Sitting on the swing was a little rag doll that Mama had made. Near the swing was a drawing board made from the very same limb that had been Katrina’s studio. On the drawing board were real charcoal paper and three sticks of willow charcoal. Katrina softly touched the drawing board. She wanted to say, How wise and wonderful you are, Papa and Thank you, Papa and I’ll always love you, Papa. But all she could say was, “Oh, Papa.” Papa didn’t say anything either. He just handed her the three sticks of charcoal. Josie began to swing with her doll and Katrina started to draw. Now she could see how beautiful Mama’s clove apple looked on the white tablecloth and how shiny red the apples were on the Christmas tree. Now she could smell the fresh winter pine tree and the warm apple pies. Now it felt like Christmas. Katrina gave her first drawing to Papa. It was a picture of the day when Papa picked the apples and Mama made apple butter and Katrina and Josie sorted the apples. In the corner Papa wrote: This picture was drawn by Katrina Ansterburg on Christmas Day 1881. Then he hung it in his woodshop and there it stayed for many long years.

silk handkerchief that erupted out of the breast pocket, an affectation he had adopted to distance himself from the Westminster hordes in their banal Christmas-stocking ties and Marks & Spencer suits.

A beautiful young woman wants to meet Santa Claus, so she puts on a robe and stays up late on Christmas Eve. Santa arrives, climbs down the chimney, and begins filling the stockings. He is about to move on to the next house when the gorgeous redhead says in a sexy voice, “Oh, Santa, please stay. Keep the chill away.” Santa replies, “HO HO HO, gotta go, gotta go. Gotta get the presents to the children, you know.” The girl drops her robe to reveal a sexy bra and panties, and says in her most flirtatious tone, “Oh, Santa, don’t run a mile; just stay for a while...” Santa begins to sweat but replies, “HO HO HO, gotta go, gotta go. Gotta get the presents to the children, you know.” The girl takes off her bra and says, “Oh, Santa... please... stay.” Santa wipes his brow but replies, “HO HO HO, gotta go, gotta go. Gotta get the presents to the children, you know.” She loses the panties and says, “Oh, Santa... please... stay....” Santa, trembling, says, “HEY HEY HEY, gotta stay, gotta stay! Can’t get up the chimney with my pecker this way!!!

From the Bridge” by Captain Hank Bracker Appreciation! Appreciation…. One of the nicer things we can get or give is appreciation. It makes what we do worthwhile! It inspires us to work harder, do better and above all, makes us feel better about ourselves. I feel appreciated when someone says thank you…. It’s as simple as that! Of course it’s also nice to receive an award for something I wrote. I recently won two awards for The Exciting Story of Cuba and it made my day! It felt even better to share the moment with my crew because they deserved it and I certainly appreciate them and their contribution, for the effort I got credit for. It’s really very nice when we appreciate people for what they have done for us and remember that it is better to give than receive. Now here is an existential thought that I’ll run past you. You might have heard the ancient chestnut.… “Does a tree make a noise when it falls in a forest with no one around to hear it?” The answer is debatable, with no definitive answer that everyone accepts. Now let’s take this thought one step further by contemplating life itself. Is there really anything, if there is no one to appreciate it? Could this account for our existence? Do we really have to exist at this time and place, within this sphere of infinity, to appreciate everything we are aware of including the universe? To me it’s an interesting thought, since philosophically “I am!” More interesting is that so are you and everyone else. Without us, would there be universe? And if so, would it make any difference, because there would be no one to know. What makes the difference is that we are here and we know that we are here! Therefore, we can appreciate it! I’m not a philosopher. I’m really just another “id” that is contemplating my existence, but what I want to impart is the importance of sharing this existence with others by appreciating them. The English poet John Donne said, “No man is an Island.” I guess the original content is found in prose, not poetry; however it’s the thought that counts. Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical theory of personality states that, “The id is the personality component made up of unconscious psychic energy that works to satisfy basic urges, needs and desires.” Now the way I see it, is that the reason that we are here is to appreciate each other and our wondrous surroundings. I might even take things a step further by getting religion into the mix. If we are made in our creator’s image, could that mean that our creator, like us, desires the appreciation of his creation and we are here to appreciate what he, or she, has created? The way we as a people are polarized causes me to wonder, if we are not all acting like a bunch of spoiled brats. Has our generation been so spoiled that we all insist on getting things our way, without understanding that we are interdependent. Seeing as how we all inhabit this one planet, and that everything we possess, need, aspire to and love, is right here on this rock floating in space; we should take stock and care for each other and, above all, appreciate what we have, as well as each other. So much from me…. I’ve been busy trying to get Suppressed I Rise – Revised Edition and Seawater One…. Going To Sea!, published before the holidays. It’s been a long time in coming, but I’m hoping that with just a little extra effort, these books will be available at your favorite book dealer in time to find a place under your Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush. That’s right! Just look at your calendar and you’ll see its October and that the holidays are almost here again! Take care, appreciate each other and have a good week. It’s later than you think….

Before he could decide what to do, he heard a female voice call out, "Pepe? Mack?" Pepe recognized the voice as belonging to Senora Rodriguez. No, Senora Thompson. There'd been a wedding in late summer. He hurried out to the main part of the barn to see what she wanted. Senora Thompson stood just inside the entrance, holding the reins of her mare, Bianca, a black beauty with four white stockings and a blaze down her nose her husband had given her after their marriage.

If she has her way ... Willa Davis is wrangling puppies when Keane Winters stalks into her pet shop with frustration in his chocolate-brown eyes and a pink bedazzled cat carrier in his hand. He needs a kitty sitter, stat. But the last thing Willa needs is to rescue a guy who doesn’t even remember her ... He’ll get nothing but coal in his stocking. Saddled with his great-aunt’s Feline from Hell, Keane is desperate to leave her in someone else’s capable hands. But in spite of the fact that he’s sure he’s never seen the drop-dead-gorgeous pet shop owner before, she seems to be mad at him ... Unless he tempers “naughty” with a special kind of nice ... Willa can’t deny that Keane’s changed since high school: he’s less arrogant, for one thing—but can she trust him not to break her heart again? It’s time to throw a coin in the fountain, make a Christmas wish—and let the mistletoe do its work ...

That precious Christmas memory and now-famous morsel of family lore, however, led me to a number of profound conclusions: There was no Santa. The reason behind my aunt’s itchy stocking was not that it was made of polyester. Joe Reynolds was bound to have a good year after a string of bad ones. Nixon indeed needed all the help he could get. And no family holiday—no holiday, period—is ever as perfect as we dream it will be. I should know. My family always had the best of intentions with our holiday celebrations

Each December I looked forward to receiving Diana’s Christmas card. I felt such joy when the mailman hand delivered the distinctive, stiff, formal envelope every year. Many years Diana sent Patrick his own card. We were probably the happiest recipients of Diana’s Christmas cards anywhere in the world. I always placed her card on our mantel with the Christmas decorations and stockings. I’d leave it there for weeks, then put it in our bank deposit box for safe-keeping. Diana’s Christmas cards and letters will be family treasures for generations to come. In 1997, there was no Christmas card from Diana. I cried inside when I looked at the empty spot on the mantel. I can still barely accept that Diana is gone. I’d planned to write again last September, telling her that Patrick was now in college and that we were coming to London next year, in the summer of 1998. For Diana, there would be no 1998.

Some nose-diving share prices do not bounce at all, but merely hurtle straight into commercial oblivion causing widespread mess on the trading room floor; these are known as ‘dead cat splats’. Other stocks are obviously doomed, but decline slowly in value before settling at their final point of worthlessness. These are known as ‘unwanted Christmas kittens’, after the trajectory of a bag containing four baby tabbies and a brick when dropped into a canal in late January.

She spotted Captain Winston in the barn, hitching the mares to the wagon, and walked out to join him. When he turned around, she was taken aback. “Good morning, Mrs. Prescott.” She stared at the freshly shaven man smiling down at her, a hint of stubble shadowing the jawline that only yesterday had sported a full and unruly beard. “Captain Winston?” His smile deepened, along with the gray of his eyes, which, without the distraction of the beard, proved to be a rather disarming combination. He rubbed a hand over his jaw as though privy to her thoughts. “Yes, ma’am. At your service. Mrs. McGavock says you need to go into town.” “Y-yes, I do. Thank you, Captain, for taking me.” “My pleasure. Just give me a couple more minutes and we’ll be set.” He circled the wagon and checked the harness straps on the other side. She tried not to stare, but had to acknowledge . . . He was a handsome man with strong, angular features. And younger than she would’ve guessed upon their first meeting. He possessed a quiet confidence about him as though he had nothing left to prove. Either that, or he simply didn’t put much stock in others’ opinions. Seeing him clean shaven brought back memories of Warren’s last trip home in April. He’d been sporting a similar soldier’s beard, as she’d called it. All wild and woolly. She’d shaved it off for him that first night, cherishing the chance to look fully into the face of the man she’d married. And loved. Loved still.

My little twenty-year-old thirteen-inch black-and-white TV had quit working a couple of months ago. I wouldn’t be able to watch Jimmy Stewart discover it was a wonderful life for the millionth time on Christmas Day, not this year. I tried to concentrate on crime in Isola, but kept thinking about those tips; planning how I’d spend the dough. I’d stock up on food first, can goods and package stuff I could heat up on my hotplate. And cases of Top Ramen for those lean times. Maybe I’d splurge on some cookies and a few snacks. A man needed something to look forward to in this dreary world. Heck, if I really made out like a bandit, maybe I could hold back a twenty so I could take a girl out to lunch. Maybe I’d even take her to the movies. Of course I’d have to find the girl, first.

Dear Reader, In Claudia and Crazy Peaches, we get to know Aunt Peaches better, and to see the special relationship Claudia has with her aunt. I have three aunts — Aunt Adele, Aunt Martha, and Aunt Merlena — and I have special memories of all of them. Aunt Martha is my father’s sister-in-law. She and Uncle Lyman used to give my sister and me the best presents. One Christmas, when we were very little, they gave us stockings with garters. They were meant for grown women, and we thought they were hysterical! Another year they gave my sister a red cuckoo clock, and they gave me a music box with two dancing figures under a glass dome. I still have the music box. Aunt Merlena, my mother’s sister-in-law, was my only aunt who lived nearby. And she loved arts and crafts as much as I did. We made puppets together once, she showed me how to make doll clothes, and one summer day she invited me over especially so that we could make my birthday party invitations together. Aunt Adele is my father’s sister, and we are extremely close. We talk on the phone a lot, and we share a love of sewing and needlework. We exchange patterns in the mail, we give each other sewing tips, but mostly we just enjoy talking. I’m very lucky to have three such wonderful aunts — maybe that’s where the idea for Claudia and her wonderful aunt came from. Happy reading,

Arctic fox…

Now Santa put toys, fruit and nuts in the stockings of good children, while bad children got coal, or birch switches, which was better than back in Zurich, where bad children received horse manure and rotten vines (although not yet in stockings). In Zurich, Samichlaus also brought trees for all children, while in Germany the Christmas tree remained, for the moment, something for the prosperous and the urban. The less prosperous became familiar with the custom in institutions – in schools, hospitals, orphanages and the like – where they had become a feature of charitable giving: patrons and donors attended candle-lighting ceremonies, at which carols were sung and gifts were handed to the poor.

This isn’t to suggest that the modern Christmas doesn’t have wholesome and nostalgic comforts of its own; it’s just that “Christmastime” was associated with presents, vacation days, and gluttonous feasts of carved meats, stuffed birds, and decorative pastries long before the advent of Christianity, Santa, or even Christ, for purposes that were both practical and primal. Ever since the onset of farming and stock raising, December has been peak comfort food season because it meant winter was coming, which meant livestock had to be slaughtered before snow covered the seasonal grasses that made up their food supply and fresh meat and vegetables had to be either eaten or preserved before the winter frost.

unwed mothers nursing unbaptised infants on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange,

She slipped her hand into Kirsty's hand and smiled at her. "We'll make it fun - with or without our stockings," she said in a comforting voice.

If you take stock of the world you will realize that the peace of the world is ‘peace’ in name only, where real peace rests in Jesus’ name only.

You can stay out of my stockings, you randy old bugger.’ He winked as Mum put the Tia Maria back in the cabinet. ‘She says that in front of you but it’ll be a different story upstairs.’ It was always so good to know your parents were having more sex than you were.

Little do they know, I caught them on camera, reported them to their parents, and quickly turned their holly jolly Christmas into a stocking full of coal.

I gagged when I recognised it for what it was: a foot, attached to a leg, stuffed into the stocking like a goddamned candy cane.

n the tropical climates of the Caribbean and the temperate climes of South America, where Christmas falls smack in the middle of summer, there is no Santa arriving on a sleigh, no jingle bells in the snow, no stockings hung on the mantel with care. it's a holiday for family, for grown-ups as well as children, celebrated with plenty of traditional food, drink, music, and dance. Nochebuena, Christmas Eve, is the night for la misa del gullo, “the rooster's mass," which begins at midnight.

in his stocking feet so as not to awaken Emilee or the children, Hans padded into the living room, walked past the Christmas tree, and moved into the small vestibule that served as his home office. Only then did he turn on a small desk lamp. He opened the drawer of his desk and withdrew the leatherbound book he had placed there earlier that day. He opened it to the first page and looked at the neatly lettered inscription: To My Beloved Hans Merry Christmas, 1932 From Emilee, Alisa, Jolanda, Hans Otto, Enrika, & Nikolaus Your Adoring Family Hans smiled and reread the handwritten message on the inside cover. Hans: A brief note of explanation. I can hear you saying to yourself as you read this: “Really? A journal? My

As time passed, stories of Nicholas the gift giver spread. German lore, for example, says that when St. Klaus (Nicholas) became a priest, family members in the woolen trade presented him with a fine red woolen cape. Sometime later, a period of famine struck Lycia, and many poor people suffered from scurvy for lack of fruit. Nicholas had his red cape and other woolen material cut into pieces to make stockings. He filled the stockings with dried fruit treats and delivered them to needy children to help stem the scurvy. For families who had no firewood, he left charcoal, bundled with string, at the threshold.

I know, now, that our lives are made up of changing seasons. Through the darkest days of bleak midwinter we have to do what we can to keep the faith, nourishing our bodies and our souls, keeping a flame burning—no matter how tiny or how tenuous—deep down inside our hearts. And that, in the bleakest moments of all, we should make a Christmas for ourselves, piling on the tinsel, lighting the candles and the fairy lights and rolling back the darkness that threatens to encroach, with the promise of a rebirth; a reawakening; a Réveillon. Because, if we can just hang on in there long enough, spring will return and the leaves, hidden deep within the bare branches and the stark vine stocks, will unfurl to the sunlight with tender, new promise.

spent the evening letting Emily call the shots for what she called “a normal Christmas Eve” night—doing everything from drinking eggnog and eating snack food to watching, of course, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Finally they hung up Emily’s Christmas stocking—a gift that Joy had tucked in one of her magical bins. Marcus hung it on the far edge of the fireplace to prevent the big crackling fire from scorching it.

I can assure you, Jane,” every time he said her name she felt a little zing down to her core, “that I have never met a Christmas project that I couldn’t handle. It’s always been my favorite holiday, and I can help with everything from stuffing your stockings to sweeping your chimney. I’ve got this season under wraps.

The fire was blazing, and in front of the fire guard were propped two bulging stockings. I could see bars of chocolate and fudge, packets of Turkish Delight, and tangerines in silver foil. Next to them were piles of presents, beautifully wrapped in tissue paper and ribbon. The room was festooned with green, spicy boughs, and breakfast was laid out on the low table next to the sofa: muffins and bread ready to be toasted, and eggs and bacon still steaming.

I'm very good at arranging hair," the maid said firmly. "And Lady Westcliff told me to use her very own pearl hairpins for you. Now, if you'll sit at the dressing table, miss...?" Touched by Lillian's generosity in sending her own maid, Hannah complied. It took an eternity to curl her hair with hot tongs, and arrange it in pinned-up curls, with gleaming white pearls scattered amid the dark locks of her hair. The maid helped her into the white ballgown, and gave her a pair of silver-embroidered silk stockings from Evie. After fastening a pearl necklace from Annabelle Hunt around Hannah's neck, the maid helped her to tug on a pair of long white satin gloves from Daisy Swift. The wallflowers, Hannah thought with a grateful smile, were her own group of fairy godmothers.

For Christmas, Mrs. Levy always compiled not a gift list but rather a list of the injustices and brutalities she had suffered since August. The girls got this list in their stockings. The only gift Mrs. Levy asked of the girls was that they attack their father. Mrs. Levy loved Christmas.

But don’t the wights get caught?” I said. “I mean, if they’re helping murder people, you’d think—” “Some do,” Emma said. “Wager you’ve heard of a few, if you follow the news. There was one fellow, they found him with human heads in the icebox and gibletty goodies in a stock pot over a low boil, like he was making Christmas dinner. In your time this wouldn’t have been so very long ago.” I remembered—vaguely—a sensationalized late-night TV special about a cannibalistic serial killer from Milwaukee who’d been apprehended in similarly gruesome circumstances. “You mean … Jeffrey Dahmer?” “I believe that was the gentleman’s name, yes,” said Millard. “Fascinating case. Seems he never lost his taste for the fresh stuff, though he’d not been a hollow for many years.

The tiny cottage, far out on the highway from any town, was a cheap place to live. In the little plot of land about it, Fadden grew a stock of vegetables. He had a flock of chickens, several ducks, and a goose “fattening for Christmas”. This last was their largest and most lasting joke. Some years before, Fadden had traded a dozen early hen eggs for one tiny gosling. Carefully, he had raised it, boasting about what a fine plump bird it would be by Christmas time. It had become just that – marvellous and plump. And a few days before the holiday of holidays, Fadden had taken his hatchet, and he had sat indoors a long time, regarding it. Finally his wife, understanding, had looked up patiently. “Dan,” she said. “I just don’t think I’d favour goose this year. If you did a chicken instead – and—” “Aye, Dally,” Fadden had said. “It would be a tarrible waste – one big goose for just the two on us. Now a chicken would be just right—” And so the goose was spared.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever without the written and signed permission of the author. All trademarked names are the property of their owner and are acknowledged by the proper use of capitalization throughout. OTHER ‘Game on Boys’ BOOKS Available on Amazon as eBooks or print books Game on Boys 4 can be read separately or part of a series FREE ebook Game on Boys 1:The PlayStation Playoffs(8-12) Game on Boys 2 : Minecraft Madness (8-12) Game on Boys 3 : NO Girls Allowed Game on Boys 5 : House of Horrors Game on Boys 6 : Galactic Zombie Other books by Kate Cullen FREE Diary Of a Wickedly Cool Witch : Bullies and Baddies(8-13) Boyfriend Stealer : Diary of a Wickedly Cool Witch 2 (8-13) Diary of a Wickedly Cool Witch 3 : Perfect Ten (8-13) Diary of a Wickedly Cool Witch 4 : Witch School for Misfits Lucy goes to the Halloween Party (Early readers) Lucy the Easter Dog (Early readers) Lucy's Merry Christmas Sammy McGann and the Secret Soup People (5-10) Follow KATE on TWITTER at Kate Cullen @ katekate5555 Or email gameonboysseries@gmail.com to receive email updates. (Copy and paste) Or visit her website for new books and giveaways Kate Cullen author website Contents 1. Wow 2. BYODD 3. Secrets 4. News 5. Brats 6. Santa 7. Wishing 8. Blocky 9. Monsters 10. Wolverine 11. Creepy. 12. Arachnophobia 13. Fartblaster 14. Superhero 15. Enderman 16. Teleporting 17. Lost 18. Potions 19. Scared 20. Spells 21. Fireworks 22. Homecoming 1. WOW You know how awesome Christmas is, and birthdays are sick as, Easter is just a big fat chocolate splurge, and even Thanksgiving is like pig-out insanity. Weekends are kinda cool too, but holidays are totally far out man. And when a new PS game comes out and they have a midnight release extravaganza at the game store, it’s like crazy time, coolness overload. All these things are the main reason I exist on this earth. Without all this stuff, life would just SUCK big time. But nothing, I repeat NOTHING comes close to the Christmas I just had. WOW! I repeat WOW! Where do I even start? This Christmas was a like a dream come true. Actually it was sort of like a nightmare too, if that makes any sense. A dream and a nightmare mixed up into one. Totally far out man. Totally gobsmacking, totally awesome, but totally freaking scary. So you’re probably thinking like I won a million bucks or something and then got mugged, or the owner of Sony PlayStation company sent me 1000 free PS games, and then the house got robbed at gunpoint. Or even better, the owner made me the new boss of the Sony PlayStation company. Yeah right! Like that will ever happen! In my dreams!! Although, after what happened, I’m thinking that absolutely anything is possible. 2. BYODD The last day at school before Christmas break was awesome. We had a BYOD day in the afternoon. The first part of the day we had to do all the boring Christmassy stuff like making soppy cards for our families, coloring pictures of Santa and doing boring word searches looking for words like (DER) ‘Santa, Christmas, present, jingle, stocking’. Like BORING. Capital ‘B’ Boring. Why can’t Christmas word finds have proper Christmas words like, console, iPhone 6, PlayStation games, Star wars, BMX, Nerf Modulous Blaster, Thunderblast, Star Wars darth vader vehicle, lego Star Wars Death star?

Maybe it’s not supposed to be sexy, but Teddy is bringing the sexy back to Christmas. He’s putting the X back into X-mas. He’s adding the hung into hanging the stockings. He’s about to Christmas bonus me into next week.

A son and daughter and six grandchildren.” “Must be nice for you when they come on a visit.” “I’m afraid I only see them at Christmas. I think they find visits to me rather boring. The children are dreadfully spoilt.” How awful, thought Agatha, to be trapped here, never seeing anyone. Her mind worked busily. She would suggest to Mrs. Bloxby that they start an old folks’ club. Her stocks and shares had been doing very well. Maybe she could see about getting the church hall renovated, turn it into an old folks’ club. “The reason we called,

No stockings, no breakfast casserole in the kitchen, no watching White Christmas with her daddy. Sounded horrible. Cindy came bopping back with their drinks. Taking a

Oh stop thinking about that DILF,” said Frankie, “we'll find you another one to stuff your stocking for Christmas.

In 17th-century England, Christmas was one of the few times of year that religious Christians could let their hair down, eat mincemeat pies and go a-wassailing. They took it to extremes, with widespread games, feasts, drunkenness, promiscuity and other forms of excess. When the Puritans took control of the British Parliament in the mid-1640s, they tried to abolish the holiday and outlaw all of its customs in the face of a resistant public. But in America, the Puritans made it happen: In 1659, the Massachusetts General Court banned Christmas, punishing anyone caught drinking eggnog or kissing underneath the mistletoe with a five-shilling fine or a stint in the stocks. The laws were later overturned, but the bias against Christmas had wended its way into Massachusetts culture: In Boston, public schools were open on Christmas Day until 1870.